The Plattner Story and Others Read online

  THE CONE

  The night was hot and overcast, the sky red-rimmed with the lingeringsunset of midsummer. They sat at the open window, trying to fancy theair was fresher there. The trees and shrubs of the garden stood stiffand dark; beyond in the roadway a gas-lamp burnt, bright orange againstthe hazy blue of the evening. Farther were the three lights of therailway signal against the lowering sky. The man and woman spoke to oneanother in low tones.

  "He does not suspect?" said the man, a little nervously.

  "Not he," she said peevishly, as though that too irritated her. "Hethinks of nothing but the works and the prices of fuel. He has noimagination, no poetry."

  "None of these men of iron have," he said sententiously. "They have nohearts."

  "_He_ has not," she said. She turned her discontented face towards thewindow. The distant sound of a roaring and rushing drew nearer andgrew in volume; the house quivered; one heard the metallic rattle ofthe tender. As the train passed, there was a glare of light above thecutting and a driving tumult of smoke; one, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight black oblongs--eight trucks--passed across the dimgrey of the embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one inthe throat of the tunnel, which, with the last, seemed to swallow downtrain, smoke, and sound in one abrupt gulp.

  "This country was all fresh and beautiful once," he said; "and now--itis Gehenna. Down that way--nothing but pot-banks and chimneys belchingfire and dust into the face of heaven.... But what does it matter? Anend comes, an end to all this cruelty.... _To-morrow._" He spoke thelast word in a whisper.

  "_To-morrow_," she said, speaking in a whisper too, and still staringout of the window.

  "Dear!" he said, putting his hand on hers.

  She turned with a start, and their eyes searched one another's. Herssoftened to his gaze. "My dear one!" she said, and then: "It seemsso strange--that you should have come into my life like this--toopen"-- She paused.

  "To open?" he said.

  "All this wonderful world"--she hesitated, and spoke still moresoftly--"this world of _love_ to me."

  Then suddenly the door clicked and closed. They turned their heads,and he started violently back. In the shadow of the room stood a greatshadowy figure--silent. They saw the face dimly in the half-light, withunexpressive dark patches under the penthouse brows. Every muscle inRaut's body suddenly became tense. When could the door have opened?What had he heard? Had he heard all? What had he seen? A tumult ofquestions.

  The new-comer's voice came at last, after a pause that seemedinterminable. "Well?" he said.

  "I was afraid I had missed you, Horrocks," said the man at the window,gripping the window-ledge with his hand. His voice was unsteady.

  The clumsy figure of Horrocks came forward out of the shadow. He madeno answer to Raut's remark. For a moment he stood above them.

  The woman's heart was cold within her. "I told Mr. Raut it was justpossible you might come back," she said, in a voice that never quivered.

  Horrocks, still silent, sat down abruptly in the chair by her littlework-table. His big hands were clenched; one saw now the fire of hiseyes under the shadow of his brows. He was trying to get his breath.His eyes went from the woman he had trusted to the friend he hadtrusted, and then back to the woman.

  By this time and for the moment all three half understood one another.Yet none dared say a word to ease the pent-up things that choked them.

  It was the husband's voice that broke the silence at last.

  "You wanted to see me?" he said to Raut.

  Raut started as he spoke. "I came to see you," he said, resolved to lieto the last.

  "Yes," said Horrocks.

  "You promised," said Raut, "to show me some fine effects of moonlightand smoke."

  "I promised to show you some fine effects of moonlight and smoke,"repeated Horrocks in a colourless voice.

  "And I thought I might catch you to-night before you went down to theworks," proceeded Raut, "and come with you."

  There was another pause. Did the man mean to take the thing coolly? Didhe after all know? How long had he been in the room? Yet even at themoment when they heard the door, their attitudes.... Horrocks glancedat the profile of the woman, shadowy pallid in the half-light. Then heglanced at Raut, and seemed to recover himself suddenly. "Of course,"he said, "I promised to show you the works under their proper dramaticconditions. It's odd how I could have forgotten."

  "If I am troubling you"--began Raut.

  Horrocks started again. A new light had suddenly come into the sultrygloom of his eyes. "Not in the least," he said.

  "Have you been telling Mr. Raut of all these contrasts of flame andshadow you think so splendid?" said the woman, turning now to herhusband for the first time, her confidence creeping back again, hervoice just one half-note too high. "That dreadful theory of yoursthat machinery is beautiful, and everything else in the world ugly. Ithought he would not spare you, Mr. Raut. It's his great theory, hisone discovery in art."

  "I am slow to make discoveries," said Horrocks grimly, damping hersuddenly. "But what I discover...." He stopped.

  "Well?" she said.

  "Nothing;" and suddenly he rose to his feet.

  "I promised to show you the works," he said to Raut, and put his big,clumsy hand on his friend's shoulder. "And you are ready to go?"

  "Quite," said Raut, and stood up also.

  There was another pause. Each of them peered through the indistinctnessof the dusk at the other two. Horrock's hand still rested on Raut'sshoulder. Raut half fancied still that the incident was trivial afterall. But Mrs. Horrocks knew her husband better, knew that grim quiet inhis voice, and the confusion in her mind took a vague shape of physicalevil. "Very well," said Horrocks, and, dropping his hand, turnedtowards the door.

  "My hat?" Raut looked round in the half-light.

  "That's my work-basket," said Mrs. Horrocks, with a gust of hystericallaughter. Their hands came together on the back of the chair. "Here itis!" he said. She had an impulse to warn him in an undertone, but shecould not frame a word. "Don't go!" and "Beware of him!" struggled inher mind, and the swift moment passed.

  "Got it?" said Horrocks, standing with the door half open.

  Raut stepped towards him. "Better say good-bye to Mrs. Horrocks," saidthe ironmaster, even more grimly quiet in his tone than before.

  Raut started and turned. "Good-evening, Mrs. Horrocks," he said, andtheir hands touched.

  Horrocks held the door open with a ceremonial politeness unusual inhim towards men. Raut went out, and then, after a wordless look ather, her husband followed. She stood motionless while Raut's lightfootfall and her husband's heavy tread, like bass and treble, passeddown the passage together. The front door slammed heavily. She went tothe window, moving slowly, and stood watching--leaning forward. The twomen appeared for a moment at the gateway in the road, passed under thestreet lamp, and were hidden by the black masses of the shrubbery. Thelamplight fell for a moment on their faces, showing only unmeaning palepatches, telling nothing of what she still feared, and doubted, andcraved vainly to know. Then she sank down into a crouching attitude inthe big arm-chair, her eyes wide open and staring out at the red lightsfrom the furnaces that flickered in the sky. An hour after she wasstill there, her attitude scarcely changed.

  The oppressive stillness of the evening weighed heavily upon Raut. Theywent side by side down the road in silence, and in silence turned intothe cinder-made by-way that presently opened out the prospect of thevalley.

  A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched the long valley withmystery. Beyond were Hanley and Etruria, grey and dark masses,outlined thinly by the rare golden dots of the street lamps, and hereand there a gaslit window, or the yellow glare of some late-workingfactory or crowded public-house. Out of the masses, clear and slenderagainst the evening sky, rose a multitude of tall chimneys, many ofthem reeking, a few smokeless during a season of "play." Here andthere a pallid patch and ghostly stunted beehive shapes showed theposition of a pot-bank, or a wheel, b
lack and sharp against the hotlower sky, marked some colliery where they raise the iridescent coalof the place. Nearer at hand was the broad stretch of railway, andhalf invisible trains shunted--a steady puffing and rumbling, withevery run a ringing concussion and a rhythmic series of impacts, and apassage of intermittent puffs of white steam across the further view.And to the left, between the railway and the dark mass of the low hillbeyond, dominating the whole view, colossal, inky-black, and crownedwith smoke and fitful flames, stood the great cylinders of the JeddahCompany Blast Furnaces, the central edifices of the big ironworks ofwhich Horrocks was the manager. They stood heavy and threatening, fullof an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molten iron, and aboutthe feet of them rattled the rolling-mills, and the steam-hammer beatheavily and splashed the white iron sparks hither and thither. Even asthey looked, a truckful of fuel was shot into one of the giants, andthe red flames gleamed out, and a confusion of smoke and black dustcame boiling upwards towards the sky.

  "Certainly you get some fine effects of colour with your furnaces,"said Raut, breaking a silence that had become apprehensive.

  Horrocks grunted. He stood with his hands in his pockets, frowning downat the dim steaming railway and the busy ironworks beyond, frowning asif he were thinking out some knotty problem.

  Raut glanced at him and away again. "At present your moonlight effectis hardly ripe," he continued, looking upward; "the moon is stillsmothered by the vestiges of daylight."

  Horrocks stared at him with the expression of a man who has suddenlyawakened. "Vestiges of daylight?... Of course, of course." He toolooked up at the moon, pale still in the midsummer sky. "Come along,"he said suddenly, and, gripping Raut's arm in his hand, made a movetowards the path that dropped from them to the railway.

  Raut hung back. Their eyes met and saw a thousand things in a momentthat their lips came near to say. Horrocks's hand tightened and thenrelaxed. He let go, and before Raut was aware of it, they were arm inarm, and walking, one unwillingly enough, down the path.

  "You see the fine effect of the railway signals towards Burslem,"said Horrocks, suddenly breaking into loquacity, striding fast andtightening the grip of his elbow the while. "Little green lightsand red and white lights, all against the haze. You have an eye foreffect, Raut. It's a fine effect. And look at those furnaces of mine,how they rise upon us as we come down the hill. That to the right ismy pet--seventy feet of him. I packed him myself, and he's boiledaway cheerfully with iron in his guts for five long years. I've aparticular fancy for _him_. That line of red there--a lovely bit ofwarm orange you'd call it, Raut--that's the puddlers' furnaces, andthere, in the hot light, three black figures--did you see the whitesplash of the steam-hammer then?--that's the rolling-mills. Come along!Clang, clatter, how it goes rattling across the floor! Sheet tin,Raut,--amazing stuff. Glass mirrors are not in it when that stuff comesfrom the mill. And, squelch!--there goes the hammer again. Come along!"

  He had to stop talking to catch at his breath. His arm twisted intoRaut's with benumbing tightness. He had come striding down the blackpath towards the railway as though he was possessed. Raut had notspoken a word, had simply hung back against Horrocks's pull with allhis strength.

  "I say," he said now, laughing nervously, but with an undernote ofsnarl in his voice, "why on earth are you nipping my arm off, Horrocks,and dragging me along like this?"

  At length Horrocks released him. His manner changed again. "Nippingyour arm off?" he said. "Sorry. But it's you taught me the trick ofwalking in that friendly way."

  "You haven't learnt the refinements of it yet then," said Raut,laughing artificially again. "By Jove! I'm black and blue." Horrocksoffered no apology. They stood now near the bottom of the hill, closeto the fence that bordered the railway. The ironworks had grown largerand spread out with their approach. They looked up to the blastfurnaces now instead of down; the further view of Etruria and Hanleyhad dropped out of sight with their descent. Before them, by the stile,rose a notice-board, bearing, still dimly visible, the words, "BEWAREOF THE TRAINS," half hidden by splashes of coaly mud.

  "Fine effects," said Horrocks, waving his arm. "Here comes a train. Thepuffs of smoke, the orange glare, the round eye of light in front ofit, the melodious rattle. Fine effects! But these furnaces of mine usedto be finer, before we shoved cones in their throats, and saved thegas."

  "How?" said Raut. "Cones?"

  "Cones, my man, cones. I'll show you one nearer. The flames used toflare out of the open throats, great--what is it?--pillars of cloud byday, red and black smoke, and pillars of fire by night. Now we run itoff in pipes, and burn it to heat the blast, and the top is shut by acone. You'll be interested in that cone."

  "But every now and then," said Raut, "you get a burst of fire and smokeup there."

  "The cone's not fixed, it's hung by a chain from a lever, and balancedby an equipoise. You shall see it nearer. Else, of course, there'd beno way of getting fuel into the thing. Every now and then the conedips, and out comes the flare."

  "I see," said Raut. He looked over his shoulder. "The moon getsbrighter," he said.

  "Come along," said Horrocks abruptly, gripping his shoulder again, andmoving him suddenly towards the railway crossing. And then came one ofthose swift incidents, vivid, but so rapid that they leave one doubtfuland reeling. Halfway across, Horrocks's hand suddenly clenched upon himlike a vice and swung him backward and through a half-turn, so thathe looked up the line. And there a chain of lamp-lit carriage-windowstelescoped swiftly as it came towards them, and the red and yellowlights of an engine grew larger and larger, rushing down upon them.As he grasped what this meant, he turned his face to Horrocks, andpushed with all his strength against the arm that held him back betweenthe rails. The struggle did not last a moment. Just as certain as itwas that Horrocks held him there, so certain was it that he had beenviolently lugged out of danger.

  "Out of the way," said Horrocks, with a gasp, as the train camerattling by, and they stood panting by the gate into the ironworks.

  "I did not see it coming," said Raut, still, even in spite of his ownapprehensions, trying to keep up an appearance of ordinary intercourse.

  Horrocks answered with a grunt. "The cone," he said, and then, as onewho recovers himself, "I thought you did not hear."

  "I didn't," said Raut.

  "I wouldn't have had you run over then for the world," said Horrocks.

  "For a moment I lost my nerve," said Raut.

  Horrocks stood for half a minute, then turned abruptly towards theironworks again. "See how fine these great mounds of mine, theseclinker-heaps, look in the night! That truck yonder, up above there!Up it goes, and out-tilts the slag. See the palpitating red stuff gosliding down the slope. As we get nearer, the heap rises up and cutsthe blast furnaces. See the quiver up above the big one. Not thatway! This way, between the heaps. That goes to the puddling furnaces,but I want to show you the canal first." He came and took Raut by theelbow, and so they went along side by side. Raut answered Horrocksvaguely. What, he asked himself, had really happened on the line? Washe deluding himself with his own fancies, or had Horrocks actually heldhim back in the way of the train? Had he just been within an ace ofbeing murdered?

  Suppose this slouching, scowling monster _did_ know anything? For aminute or two then Raut was really afraid for his life, but the moodpassed as he reasoned with himself. After all, Horrocks might haveheard nothing. At anyrate, he had pulled him out of the way in time.His odd manner might be due to the mere vague jealousy he had shownonce before. He was talking now of the ash-heaps and the canal. "Eigh?"said Horrocks.

  "What?" said Raut. "Rather! The haze in the moonlight. Fine!"

  "Our canal," said Horrocks, stopping suddenly. "Our canal by moonlightand firelight is an immense effect. You've never seen it? Fancy that!You've spent too many of your evenings philandering up in Newcastlethere. I tell you, for real florid effects-- But you shall see. Boilingwater...."

  As they came out of the labyrinth of clinker-heaps and mounds of
coaland ore, the noises of the rolling-mill sprang upon them suddenly,loud, near, and distinct. Three shadowy workmen went by and touchedtheir caps to Horrocks. Their faces were vague in the darkness. Rautfelt a futile impulse to address them, and before he could framehis words, they passed into the shadows. Horrocks pointed to thecanal close before them now: a weird-looking place it seemed, in theblood-red reflections of the furnaces. The hot water that cooled thetuyeres came into it, some fifty yards up--a tumultuous, almost boilingaffluent, and the steam rose up from the water in silent white wispsand streaks, wrapping damply about them, an incessant succession ofghosts coming up from the black and red eddies, a white uprising thatmade the head swim. The shining black tower of the larger blast-furnacerose overhead out of the mist, and its tumultuous riot filled theirears. Raut kept away from the edge of the water, and watched Horrocks.

  "Here it is red," said Horrocks, "blood-red vapour as red and hot assin; but yonder there, where the moonlight falls on it, and it drivesacross the clinker-heaps, it is as white as death."

  Raut turned his head for a moment, and then came back hastily to hiswatch on Horrocks. "Come along to the rolling-mills," said Horrocks.The threatening hold was not so evident that time, and Raut felt alittle reassured. But all the same, what on earth did Horrocks meanabout "white as death" and "red as sin"? Coincidence, perhaps?

  They went and stood behind the puddlers for a little while, and thenthrough the rolling-mills, where amidst an incessant din the deliberatesteam-hammer beat the juice out of the succulent iron, and black,half-naked Titans rushed the plastic bars, like hot sealing-wax,between the wheels. "Come on," said Horrocks in Raut's ear, and theywent and peeped through the little glass hole behind the tuyeres, andsaw the tumbled fire writhing in the pit of the blast-furnace. It leftone eye blinded for a while. Then, with green and blue patches dancingacross the dark, they went to the lift by which the trucks of ore andfuel and lime were raised to the top of the big cylinder.

  And out upon the narrow rail that overhung the furnace, Raut'sdoubts came upon him again. Was it wise to be here? If Horrocks didknow--everything! Do what he would, he could not resist a violenttrembling. Right under foot was a sheer depth of seventy feet. It was adangerous place. They pushed by a truck of fuel to get to the railingthat crowned the place. The reek of the furnace, a sulphurous vapourstreaked with pungent bitterness, seemed to make the distant hillsideof Hanley quiver. The moon was riding out now from among a drift ofclouds, half-way up the sky above the undulating wooded outlinesof Newcastle. The steaming canal ran away from below them under anindistinct bridge, and vanished into the dim haze of the flat fieldstowards Burslem.

  "That's the cone I've been telling you of," shouted Horrocks; "and,below that, sixty feet of fire and molten metal, with the air of theblast frothing through it like gas in soda-water."

  Raut gripped the hand-rail tightly, and stared down at the cone. Theheat was intense. The boiling of the iron and the tumult of the blastmade a thunderous accompaniment to Horrocks's voice. But the thing hadto be gone through now. Perhaps, after all....

  "In the middle," bawled Horrocks, "temperature near a thousand degrees.If _you_ were dropped into it ... flash into flame like a pinch ofgunpowder in a candle. Put your hand out and feel the heat of hisbreath. Why, even up here I've seen the rain-water boiling off thetrucks. And that cone there. It's a damned sight too hot for roastingcakes. The top side of it's three hundred degrees."

  "Three hundred degrees!" said Raut.

  "Three hundred centigrade, mind!" said Horrocks. "It will boil theblood out of you in no time."

  "Eigh?" said Raut, and turned.

  "Boil the blood out of you in.... No, you don't!"

  "Let me go!" screamed Raut. "Let go my arm!"

  With one hand he clutched at the hand-rail, then with both. For amoment the two men stood swaying. Then suddenly, with a violent jerk,Horrocks had twisted him from his hold. He clutched at Horrocks andmissed, his foot went back into empty air; in mid-air he twistedhimself, and then cheek and shoulder and knee struck the hot conetogether.

  He clutched the chain by which the cone hung, and the thing sank aninfinitesimal amount as he struck it. A circle of glowing red appearedabout him, and a tongue of flame, released from the chaos within,flickered up towards him. An intense pain assailed him at the knees,and he could smell the singeing of his hands. He raised himself to hisfeet, and tried to climb up the chain, and then something struck hishead. Black and shining with the moonlight, the throat of the furnacerose about him.

  Horrocks, he saw, stood above him by one of the trucks of fuel on therail. The gesticulating figure was bright and white in the moonlight,and shouting, "Fizzle, you fool! Fizzle, you hunter of women! Youhot-blooded hound! Boil! boil! boil!"

  Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of the truck, and flung itdeliberately, lump after lump, at Raut.

  "Horrocks!" cried Raut. "Horrocks!"

  He clung crying to the chain, pulling himself up from the burning ofthe cone. Each missile Horrocks flung hit him. His clothes charredand glowed, and as he struggled the cone dropped, and a rush of hotsuffocating gas whooped out and burned round him in a swift breath offlame.

  His human likeness departed from him. When the momentary red hadpassed, Horrocks saw a charred, blackened figure, its head streakedwith blood, still clutching and fumbling with the chain, and writhingin agony--a cindery animal, an inhuman, monstrous creature that began asobbing intermittent shriek.

  Abruptly, at the sight, the ironmaster's anger passed. A deadlysickness came upon him. The heavy odour of burning flesh came driftingup to his nostrils. His sanity returned to him.

  "God have mercy upon me!" he cried. "O God! what have I done?"

  He knew the thing below him, save that it still moved and felt, wasalready a dead man--that the blood of the poor wretch must be boilingin his veins. An intense realisation of that agony came to his mind,and overcame every other feeling. For a moment he stood irresolute, andthen, turning to the truck, he hastily tilted its contents upon thestruggling thing that had once been a man. The mass fell with a thud,and went radiating over the cone. With the thud the shriek ended, anda boiling confusion of smoke, dust, and flame came rushing up towardshim. As it passed, he saw the cone clear again.

  Then he staggered back, and stood trembling, clinging to the rail withboth hands. His lips moved, but no words came to them.

  Down below was the sound of voices and running steps. The clangour ofrolling in the shed ceased abruptly.